How much did home sales drop? 28 percent? 35? Or 41?

If you’re a voracious reader of Capital Region media — if such a thing exists — you might have noticed that the Daily Gazette, the Business Review and yours truly have each reported a different number for how much home sales dropped last month.

The reason for the confusing and kind of embarrassing disparity? We each interpreted or defined the numbers differently.

The Gazette reported pending sales — houses that went under contract during the month and haven’t yet closed.

The Business Review and I reported closed sales. The Business Review number, though, is for sales in the broad, 11-county region covered by GCAR, while my number is for only sales in Saratoga, Rensselaer, Schenectady and Albany counties.